Stop killing us!

Monday, August 26th.

The body of a woman who was missing since last Friday was finally found this afternoon. It is on the news everywhere.

The disappearance of Letícia Sousa, 26 years-old, was commented everywhere, from social media to friends gatherings during the weekend. It was impossible not to hear about her. She was young, beautiful and her pictures were widely shared.

Now she will become another number, the 17th (woman victim of feminicide in 2019 only in Brasília (but this number can be even higher). A report reveals that more women are being killed in the country. Only in Sao Paulo, the biggest Brazilian city, in the first trimester, 37 women were victims of feminicide, against 21 in the same period of 2018. These are women who dared to say no, who dared just to be a woman, in a country that denies its sexism.

Numbers across for the whole country are hard to find, however, in 2018 an average of 922 women were granted protective measures per day. And these are only the 336.555 women who went to justice against their tormentors. Some cannot access such measures or are too afraid to do so.

Letícia was waiting for a bus to get to work, when at 7:40am the man stopped his car and offered a lift, claiming he was offering alternative transport to where she was headed. In his confession, he said that when she denied having sex with him, he strangled her.

The pattern is well known. Men get upset when hearing a ‘no’ from a woman, they don’t accept not being the ones making the decisions, some will perform some online harassment, some will get nasty, some will make threats, and some will kill.

So men, it is okay to hear a ‘no’ from a woman now and then. Get your shit together and educate your fellow colleagues. Let’s make the world safer for women.